Penn State jumped, fails to recover in 74-57 bludgeoning at Indiana

The first media timeout couldn’t come fast enough for Penn State at Indiana Wednesday evening.

Facing the Hoosiers at Assembly Hall, the Nittany Lions found themselves in an immediate hole. Shots were falling for the hosts, rebounds corralled into their hands, and six shots missed before Penn State found the bottom of the net.

And it wouldn’t get any better.

Taken to the woodshed in a bludgeoning much worse than the 74-57 final score indicated, Penn State head coach Micah Shrewsberry lamented every bit of the performance.

“Some of that was them. Some of that’s playing at home. Guys make shots they don’t normally make,” Shrewsberry said in his postgame radio interview. “But we had no presence in the first half. When we have a presence, then people don’t make shots. They were getting easy shots. We didn’t follow the game plan. We didn’t stick to our game plan when things went bad. And when you do that, things get worse.”

For Penn State, it would get as bad as it has been at any point in Shrewsberry’s first season with the program.

Finally finding their first points on a Seth Lundy fastbreak layup at the 15:13 mark in the first half, the Nittany Lions would only score 15 more points before reaching the locker room. Against an Indiana team avenging its loss to Penn State at the Bryce Jordan Center earlier this month, the dead brick shooting coincided with an unconscious shooting effort for the Hoosiers. 

Climbing as high as 71.4 percent shooting late in the first half, the hosts built a lead to as many as 31 points. A Trayce Jackson-Davis dunk to cap that particular run, the play punctuated runs of 12-0, 17-2, and 8-3 for Indiana in the first half alone.

Determined to produce an effort matching the characteristics Shrewsberry has sought to bring to the hardwood this season in the second half, the Nittany Lions managed to staunch the bleeding out of the break. 

Though a Miller Kopp 3-pointer lifted Indiana to its biggest margin of the game, 32 points at 49-17 with 18:45 left to play, the Nittany Lions whittled away the deficit for the ensuing 15 minutes. 

An uptempo offensive attack counter to Penn State’s plodding identity for much of the Big Ten season, the Nittany Lions connected on 8 of 16 shots from deep and improved to 15 of 30 shooting from the floor. Combined with a rebounding effort that saw the Nittany Lions earn a 21-7 advantage in the second half, it was enough to bring the differential down to 14 with 3:15 left to play, 67-53.

“We shared the ball with each other, we played with more pace. We ran the floor at every opportunity,” Shrewsberry said. “But it’s hard to do that when you’re not getting stops. They’re scoring every single possession in the first half. 

“The second half, we grit our teeth, and we balled our fist. And that’s what we need to see. The guys that played that second half, that’s who you’re gonna see play next game. Until somebody proves otherwise that they deserve to get out there and play, those guys are gonna play every minute.”

Next returning to the floor for a Monday matchup with Iowa back at the BJC, the second meeting in three games between the two programs, Shrewsberry made plain the character he’d like to see moving forward.

A responsibility he claimed, reversing the similarities in what has extended into a season-long three-game losing streak will be essential.

“How we played is not indicative of who we are. But also, maybe it is who we are,” Shrewsberry said. “I didn’t feel like we were ready to go at 11:30 this morning. And if guys aren’t ready to go, that’s on me. I gotta have them ready to go. But we need to be ready. We need to be fired up, and we need to be the hungrier team. 

“We lost two games in a row. I know they’ve lost one. This is their home court. But we didn’t have that hunger in the first half. And maybe we were a little bit shell-shocked. But they were the tougher team, and when you’re the tougher team, shots that normally don’t go in, go in. And that’s what happened and it just snowballed from there.”

Penn State and Iowa will meet at 7 p.m. Monday. The game will be broadcast by the BTN.